Lt Gen B C Khanduri might not know that much about politics, but he does know his real job: building roads (he’s a sapper). Impressed by his performance as Union minister for surface transport through the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government – where he built his career on building road and built so many of them that the Golden Quadrilateral became the centrepiece of that government’s achievements – the BJP thought he would be the best candidate for chief minister of Uttarakhand. Accordingly, he was dispatched to the state as CM in 2007.
When he went to the state, he vowed to shake things up. “I am going to give the bureaucracy two weeks. If they can’t sort themselves out in two weeks, they will be sacked,” he said, days after he took over.
That was the least of his problems.
Like the rest of India, the regional and caste divide dominate the politics of Uttarakhand. The state knows only two regions – Garhwal and Kumaon – and the rivalry between them is intense to the point of being comical. The power elite is either Brahmin or Thakur and this division is quite deep too.
His army background added another layer to the pressure groups operating on the government. Ex-servicemen were a natural constituency, so he tried to promote them. Former government servants needed to be kept happy since they were a big chunk of voters — 200,000 employees. His one great achievement was the 304 Mw Maneri Bhali Phase III hydel project, the first phase of which, producing 76 Mw, was inaugurated within 10 months of his taking over as CM. Khanduri’s Hill Development Industrial Policy was designed with the best possible intentions but it failed to attract any industry.
Despite intending to move forward aggressively on the administration front, Khanduri found himself surrounded by Garhwali Brahmins. The Kumaonis vowed to get even.
Equally annoyed was the Thakur lobby. In 2007 itself, Khanduri faced the first public revolt from within the BJP. Two Thakur leaders, Rajnath Singh and B S Koshiyari had led the campaign in the state elections in 2007 against Congress CM N D Tewari. The BJP won 34 seats in a House of 70, also securing the support of four MLAs of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD). But it was Khanduri who was made CM, with Koshiyari rejecting the deputy chief ministership (he was made an MP of the Rajya Sabha later to keep him out of the state).
At that time in 2007, supporters of the Koshiyari and Khanduri factions fought a pitched battle against each other, breaking furniture and glass windows and manhandling party observers Venkaiah Naidu and Ravi Shankar Prasad. However, Khanduri did not forget the slight. Residents of Uttarakhand noticed that after an election, when leaders customarily link hands to fete victory. Khanduri pointedly refused to hold Koshiyari’s hand.
Things became so bad that Khanduri had to bow out. But his successor was not Koshiyari but Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, formerly a Koshiyari acolyte who later jumped ship to join Khanduri. Nishank was also a Garhwali Brahmin and turned out to be the worst chief minister Uttarakhand has had. A north Indian businessman with interests in liquor and distilleries who had made his fortune in UP and Rajasthan earlier, now moved to Uttarakhand and changed his line of work — turning to building power projects. Companies (that could not be traced back to him) got contracts in as many as 56 hydel projects. When the matter was taken up by the opposition, the projects were cancelled and the government offered to return the money to these companies. They refused and said since they had been the lowest bidders, the government was obliged to honour the contract. The matter is now in the Supreme Court. There were also allegations about the use to which a central grant amounting to Rs 500 crore for the Kumbh Mela was put.
The BJP was now beginning to get jittery — elections in Uttarakhand are in early 2012. The Anna-Hazare effect was also in evidence. Venerable leader and MP, Lt Gen T P S Rawat, one of those who led the morcha for the creation of a separate Uttarakhand state, threatened to launch a parallel political party. Khanduri’s supporters made it known that he would not be averse to joining it. A Hindi newspaper ran a survey that predicted seven seats for the BJP in the forthcoming Assembly election. Sushma Swaraj got into action. Nishank was replaced with Khanduri. The BJP is hoping it has acted in time.
